Daily Digest 11/20 - The Economy's Ebb And Flow, Dust Storms On The High Plains

Economy

The company will reduce carbon by paying landowners to sequester it—a process of pulling carbon out of the air and burying it in the ground. Farmers and ranchers in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota will be paid to keep their property free of row crops like corn and soy, which require a lot of carbon to produce, and require intensive tiling, which can release even more carbon. Instead, they’ll keep their land in “perpetual easement.” They’ll be allowed to grow low-energy crops like hay, but will be required to plant trees and other plants that help capture carbon.

Much of that period corresponded with massive international military efforts to root out terrorism. And as the U.S. winds up its war in Afghanistan—a country that saw a 13-percent increase in terrorism-related fatalities last year—and considers the extent to which it wants to intervene militarily to halt the spread of ISIS, it's worth asking: How does terrorism actually end? The question is one that the Rand Corporation addressed in a 2008 study that the Global Terrorism Index authors cite. That report examined 268 terrorist groups that halted their attacks between 1968 and 2006. In only 7 percent of those cases, the report found, military intervention brought about the end of a terrorist group.

After the fall bubble boom of 1983 to 2007, both businesses and consumers over-borrowed and over-invested. Even when central banks reduce short-term interest rates to zero and long-term rates near or below zero real returns, businesses aren’t lining up to borrow, nor are consumers (especially the older baby boomers who still dominate the economy).

Government deficits and increases in borrowing don’t compete with the private sector. The chart below shows how private debt has deleveraged or shrunk slightly since the crisis of 2008, while government debt levels have continued to soar.

12,040 of these new ultra high net worth (UHNW) individuals were minted in the year ending June 2014, said the Wealth-X and UBS World Ultra Wealth Report released on Wednesday. This meant a 6 percent increase from last year which pushed the global population of these millionaires to a record 211,275.

With the annual gross domestic product of the U.S. closing in on the $17 trillion mark, according to the World Bank, this means that the ultra-rich now have almost twice the wealth of the world's largest economy.

Police departments around the country make a fortune by stealing private property from innocent people. This process, known as civil forfeiture, lets police confiscate your property without ever suspecting of or charging you with a crime, and they are laughing while doing it.

As more and more cases of civil forfeiture come to light, national outrage surrounding the practice has grown. But, thanks to video footage released by the Institute of Justice, the cops might finally have a valid excuse for their criminal ways – they can legitimately claim, “We were just doing what we were taught!”

Russia and China have signed two large natural gas deals in the last six months as Russia turns its attention eastward in reaction to sanctions and souring relations with Europe, currently Russia's largest energy export market. But the move has implications beyond Europe. In the department of everything is connected, U.S. natural gas producers may be seeing their dream of substantial liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports suffer fatal injury because of Russian exports to the Chinese market, a market that was expected to be the largest and most profitable for LNG exporters.

Wind takes nearly half the soil eroded from American farmlands. It does its worst in parts of the high plains, where agriculture is pushing its limits: eastern Colorado and nearby regions of Oklahoma and Texas, as well as North Dakota. East of the high plains, severe wind erosion affects the Red River valley of North Dakota-Minnesota. Unprotected soil blows away many times faster than it forms in these regions.

If the bill had passed, Obama was widely expected to veto it, a power he has used only three times during his six years in office. Obama raised new questions about the project during a trip to Asia late last week, saying it would not lower gas prices for U.S. drivers but would allow Canada to "pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else."

Gold & Silver

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